Chu: The Climate Bill Won't Cost Taxpayers An Arm And A Leg

Chairman Boxer, Ranking Member Inhofe, and Members of the
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on moving
America toward a clean energy economy.

We face many serious and immediate challenges. American families
and businesses are struggling in a recession and an increasingly
competitive global economy. We have become deeply dependent on a
single energy source to power our cars, trucks and airplanes, and
spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year to import nearly 60
percent of the oil we use. We face an unprecedented threat to our
very way of life from climate change.

To solve these challenges, the Administration and Congress need
to work together to spur a revolution in clean energy
technologies. The President and I applauded the historic action
by the House to pass a clean energy bill, and we look forward to
working with the Senate to pass comprehensive energy legislation.

I want to focus today on the threat of climate change.
Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that carbon dioxide from
human activity has increased the atmospheric level of CO2 by
roughly 40 percent, a level one- third higher than any time in
the last 800,000 years. There is also a consensus that CO2 and
other greenhouse gas emissions have caused our planet to change.
Already, we have seen the loss of about half of the summer arctic
polar ice cap since the 1950s, a dramatically accelerating rise
in sea level, and the loss of over two thousand cubic miles of
glacial ice, not on geological time scales but over a mere
hundred years.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected in
2007 that, if we continued on this course, there was a 50 percent
chance of global average air temperature increasing by more than
7 degrees Fahrenheit in this century. A 2009 MIT study found a
fifty percent chance of a 9 degree rise in this century and a 17
percent chance of a nearly 11 degree increase. 11 degrees may not
sound like much, but, during the last ice age, when Canada and
much of the United States were covered all year in a glacier, the
world was only about 11 degrees colder. A world 11 degrees warmer
will be very different as well. Is this the legacy we want to
leave our children and grandchildren?

Denial of the climate change problem will not change our destiny;
a comprehensive energy and climate bill that caps and then
reduces carbon emissions will.

America has the opportunity to lead a new industrial revolution
of creating sustainable, clean energy. We can sit on the
sidelines and deny the scientific facts, or we can get in the
game and play to win.

Opponents of this effort claim the nation cannot afford to act at
this time. I disagree, and so do the Environmental Protection
Agency and the Congressional Budget Office. These organizations
estimate that meeting the greenhouse gas targets in the House
bill can be achieved at an annual cost between 22 to 48 cents per
day per household in 2020. That’s about the price of a postage
stamp per day.

History suggests that the actual costs could be even lower. The
costs to save our ozone layer, to reduce smog with catalytic
converters, and to scrub the sulfur dioxide from power plants
were all far less than estimated. For example, according to the
EPA, the SO2 reductions will be achieved for one-quarter of the
estimated cost. The right clean energy incentives will start the
great American research and innovation machine, and I am
confident that American ingenuity will lead to better and cheaper
climate solutions.

We can make significant near-term carbon reductions through
energy efficiency. We use 40 percent of our energy in buildings.
I firmly believe that, with today’s technologies, we can build
new homes and buildings that use 40 percent less energy than
today’s new buildings and therefore save money on energy bills.
By developing a system integration approach, I believe we could
eventually build buildings that use 80 percent less energy with
investments that pay for themselves in less than 15 years through
reduced energy bills. Similarly, we could retrofit existing
buildings to achieve 50 percent energy savings with investments
that will pay for themselves.

A comprehensive energy and climate bill will drive American
innovation in fuel efficient automobiles and the development of
advanced batteries for electric vehicles. It will offer
incentives to re-start our nuclear power industry and encourage
utilities to invest in carbon capture and sequestration. It will
drive investments in wind and solar power and next generation
biofuels from grasses and agricultural waste.

In addition to deploying the technologies we have today and can
see on the horizon, we must pursue truly transformative
solutions. Climate experts, such as the IPCC, tell us we must
reduce our carbon emissions by 80 percent by mid-century to
stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations at a level
that may avoid the worst consequences of climate change. To
achieve our long-term goals in a more cost-effective way, we will
need a sustained commitment to research and development. Only R
& D can deliver a new generation of clean technologies.

Let me close with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King. His words
seem so fitting for today’s climate crisis:

“We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is
today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this
unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as
being too late.”

Now is the time to take comprehensive and sustained action. With
the leadership of the President, the actions of this Congress,
and the support and participation of the American people, I am
confident that we will succeed.